


That's Just How The Game Is Played

by sottovoce81



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexual Derek Hale, Character Study, Derek Hale Deserves Nice Things, Derek Hale's Past Consent Issues, Derek Hale's Past Consent Issues with Kate Argent, Healing, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, M/M, Mentioned Kate Argent, Past Kate Argent/Derek Hale, Past Rape/Non-con, Recovery, Warning: Kate Argent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-02-07 06:55:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21453874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sottovoce81/pseuds/sottovoce81
Summary: Then some lady at the store gives him that look. Like Kate. Her eyes are interested, and her grin is predatory, and Derek just knows she wants him. So he thinks to himself if he initiates it maybe it won’t leave him feeling so wrong. So he does. He lifts an eyebrow and pretends to want to look at her. She smiles and he thinks of predators in the wild, baring their teeth at prey.He’s never understood why people can take one look at someone and want to have sex. But then, maybe it’s just something that’s broken in him. So he pretends to understand. Better to pretend than admit something’s wrong...right?
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 7
Kudos: 376
Collections: Asexual Acceptance





	That's Just How The Game Is Played

**Author's Note:**

> I re-found this not!fic on my tumblr and decided to fix it up just a bit to post it here. I wrote this in 2017 *before* I realized I am asexual. So I tweaked it a bit, because rereading this made me think even then I was imagining Derek as being somewhere on the ace-spectrum, even if I didn't fully realize what that meant at the time.
> 
> It's a bit rambly, but originally this was just a word-dump of a thought I had late one night while trying to sleep.

After everything with Kate, Derek goes to New York with the decision to never to be hurt that way by anyone again. Not the losing his family part, because how could he ever lose so much again, right? 

So he gets a part-time job as a grocery bagger at a little independent store on the corner of a street not far from their shitty apartment. He is young and most places won’t hire someone with his baby face without asking for ID but he and Laura are mostly trying to live off-the-grid.

He works after school to bring in a few bucks so that Laura’s eyes won’t be quite so pinched now that she has gotten her GED and began working to make ends meet for them in a very expensive city. After work, she then spends sometimes hours on the phone and emailing lawyers who are still trying to get all of the paperwork straight. So yeah, Derek works to help Laura.

But then some lady at the store gives him that look. Like Kate. Her eyes are interested, and her grin is predatory, and he just knows she wants him. So he thinks to himself if he initiates it maybe it won’t leave him feeling so wrong. So he does. He lifts an eyebrow and pretends to want to look at her. She smiles and he thinks of predators in the wild, baring their teeth at prey.

He’s never understood why people can take one look at someone and want to have sex. But then, maybe it’s just something that’s broken in him. So he pretends to understand. Better to pretend than admit something’s wrong...right?

So he looks at the lady in the grocery store from underneath his eyelashes, and twitches the edges of his mouth up into an almost smile (even though it feels more like a grimace.) He walks her out to her car, pushing her basket slowly as each step fills him with dread because he’s leaving the safety of the building to follow her to her car.

But when the lady’s groceries are in the car, she grins and hands him a tip of five dollars. He tips his chin at her in acknowledgement but she must take it as a goodbye because she leaves. He played the game and she left.

He never even had to say a word.

It becomes a thing. He flirts with anyone who shows him interest as he bags their groceries and “helps them to their car” even though they never need help. And they don’t get further than a hand to his arm--or one time a quick touch to his butt--but that’s the time he makes excuses about the rush of customers and almost runs back to the store and then hides in the restroom for nearly fifteen minutes until his boss bangs on the door and tells him the register needs to be manned.

So he stands up straight and gets back out there, shoving down the panic because he’s fine. He shouldn’t be worked up. Nothing happened! So what--the lady’s hand brushed the back of his pants--it’s not like she touched his skin!

He tells himself his reaction was stupid. And he does his damned job.

It just becomes a way of survival. As he gets older, it seems like more women want to sleep with him. He’s filling out, thanks to all of the runs he’s going on after work and thanks to the workouts he’s pushing his body through every morning. Because he has to be strong enough. He has to be bigger. He doesn’t want anyone to think they can hold him down or force him.

He learns how to play the game. One day, three years later he mentions something about that to a coworker (now working at a bar mixing drinks because someone had once told him he would make great money in tips) but his coworker didn’t think of sex as a game. Derek knew better. Maybe it wasn’t for some people, but he would never be able to trust someone in that way again, so he had to strike first before an opponent could.

One day a man at the bar looks at him just right, and Derek just thinks: oh. He’s never focused on men before, but he’s noticed them in passing as being beautiful in their own right. He just hadn’t ever thought about them that way. But then again, he hadn’t thought about women that way until they were coming on to him either.

So he looks again at men. He figures bodies react the same to other bodies, no matter what gender the hand around your dick identifies as. So everything should work out fine in the end. Besides, there’s something appealing about the build if it’s not too muscular, or if the face isn’t too calculating. So he goes to the guy’s apartment after his shift and they sleep together. Derek pretends he’s done this before, even though he’s mostly relying on his sense of smell and hearing to tell if the guy is into different things he tries. And after that, Derek flirts with anyone he feels he has to.

Time goes on. Things stay much the same.

He survives.

Laura doesn’t.

And then there’s Stiles. He knows the kid likes to watch him, but it’s not the same as other people watching his body. Maybe at first, but then Stiles starts to know him. And he starts to know Stiles.

Nothing happens between them--of course--while Stiles is in highschool. Derek ignores any smells of lust wafting by because he knows what it’s like to have hormones and to be unable to control your body’s responses to literal puffs of wind. It’s no big deal.

Until it is.

Derek ignores any interest on Stiles’ side, and eventually manages to mostly forget it’s even there. He just, ignores it. But then Stiles fills out. He grows into his lithe form, and stops growing after he’s already an inch taller than Derek. And Derek can’t help but watch the way his once-flailing limbs seem to move gracefully now. He can’t help but watch the shit-eating grins Stiles gives him from across the room when he’s teasing.

Derek can’t help but watch Stiles.

Stiles who is home from college after his second year has finished to make room for summer break. Stiles who means so much and is so good even when he’s an asshole. Stiles who understands him and cares about him enough to call him on anniversaries of his family’s death and birthdays and rants for hours until Derek can start to breathe freely again.

Stiles who leans in one day after a pack dinner, when he and Derek have finished cleaning up after everyone else has gone home. Stiles kisses him gently, at first, almost hesitantly. But when Derek doesn’t push him away, he presses in more firmly and suddenly Derek realizes where this is going to go.

Oh, he thinks. And it kind of makes him sad.

But he knows how the game is played.

So he lets Stiles slip his shirt off and push him back onto his bed. Stiles crawls on top of him and Derek begins pulling their hips together in a slow and sinuous way. But Stiles doesn’t react like any man Derek’s been with before–which really shouldn’t be as much of a surprise as it is. Yes, Stiles lets out a little moan, but it doesn’t break Stiles away from Derek’s mouth, where his tongue is doing things to Derek that he can’t explain. And his hands after trapping Derek’s face, but not like he’s trying to contain Derek, more like he’s holding something precious. His thumbs keep swiping across Derek’s eyebrows, like he’s memorizing their shape.

It’s the most confusing round of sex Derek has ever had. They both get off, and Stiles feels so good against his skin, but Derek has no idea what this is. It’s never been like this before. Stiles didn’t sleep with him like he wanted anything. Stiles acted more like he wanted to give Derek something.

So for two weeks, Derek avoids being alone with Stiles. Because he’s not ready for a repeat of whatever that was. He’s not ready to get torn apart again, because the last time he was that overwhelmed by sensations was Kate. But Stiles isn’t Kate. He just doesn’t know what to do.  
It all comes to a head when Stiles surprises him in his own loft. He wakes up from an afternoon nap to find Stiles sitting at the foot of his bed watching him. And for half a second Derek is utterly shocked that someone would not touch him when he’s lying there asleep and unable to do anything about it. But then he reminds himself that this is Stiles. And Stiles isn’t like that. He isn’t like any of them. Stiles is something new.

He sits up in his bed, and Stiles gives him a strained smile, and tells Derek he knows he’s been avoiding him. Derek doesn’t really know what to say. “Is it because we had sex?” Stiles asks. And Derek again doesn’t know what to say.

“Shit, Derek,” Stiles says, but it doesn’t sound angry. It sounds tired. “If you didn’t want to have sex with me, why didn’t you say something? I thought…” and he looks down, his scent starting to tinge with shades of sour guilt and grief.

Derek can’t let him feel that bad without doing something about it. It’s not like Stiles forced him into it. Derek could have said no, even though at the time he wouldn’t have known how. “I don’t understand,” he finally blurts out awkwardly.

Stiles latches onto it. “Understand what?”

Derek frowns, because it’s better than blushing and hiding his face under a pillow like he wants to do. He waves a hand between them.

“You gotta give me more than that,” Stiles says.

“What do you get out of this?”

“Out of what?”

“Stiles,” he whines, because damn it why does he have to be like this!

“No seriously,” Stiles says, “because if it was a one off and you don’t ever want to do that again, then I guess I’ll have to just shove all my feelings for you down a little deeper and try to get over being in love with you so that I can move on. But what I really want is to date the shit out of you and be boyfriends and sit with you at ever pack meeting until everyone just knows that the spot next to you is mine.”

Derek isn’t sure what his face is doing now, but Stiles’ face softens, and he crawls forward on the bed until he’s even with Derek’s knee, where he places one of his hands gently, like he’s not sure if his touch is welcome or not.

“You’re an idiot if you think I’m only in this for the sex, okay?” Stiles says bluntly. “I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you before kissing you. I was just so nervous that I thought if I didn’t do it then I never would, and I would regret not giving it a shot for the rest of my life. So I kissed you. But then it seemed like you were interested. I…” and he pauses there, almost like he was trying to decide if he dared say it, “I’ll leave you alone if that’s what you want. We don’t ever have to talk about it again. I just, I need to know what you want.”

Derek sits there, for probably too long of a moment in silence, but Stiles is patient and lets him think. Finally, he feels his mouth open and before he even realizes he’s going to say it, he admits, “I’ve never slept with someone I cared about.”

Stiles tips his head a little, working that through his brain. “But what about Julia?”  
He shrugs. “She wanted it, and…I don’t know. Everything with her is still a little vague and fuzzy.”

“Braeden?” Stiles asks.

She smelled like guns and lust, the base notes of Kate, and he would never trust her for it. So he slept with her before she could use sex against him. He settles on, “She wanted me,” with a shrug to pretend the whole thing didn’t matter, even though it sometimes left him breathing through his mouth as he remembered how much she had reminded him of Kate in little ways.

“Wait,” Stiles says slowly, “when you mean someone you care about…am I someone you care about?”

And Derek rolls his eyes because isn’t it obvious? “Yes, Stiles.”

The slow grin that Stiles gives him is bright and breathtaking and beautiful. And somehow it just makes sense to Derek to lean forward and press a kiss to his lips. Stiles gasps into it like he’s just been given a gift.

They don’t have sex. Because Derek isn’t ready and Stiles doesn’t initiate anything. His hands stay above Derek’s waist, and he seems to be waiting for Derek to lead. And for once, Derek doesn’t know what to do. But something about this moment makes him feel comfortable enough to say that, even though it’s hard. 

When he asks if Stiles minds waiting for them to have sex again, Stiles just grabs him into a tight hug and says he’ll wait as long as Derek wants.

They make it work. Derek learns that sex can be more than a game or a battle. And Stiles learns that Derek blushes when he presses slow kisses to the skin underneath Derek’s jaw.

It’s not perfect right away, but they figure it out. Stiles slowly proves himself to Derek that he can be trusted. Slowly they develop their relationship. Slowly Derek isn’t afraid anymore.

And when someone looks at him just so, Stiles is usually there by his side, to grin predatorily at them when he sees Derek tense up. He takes to putting an arm around Derek’s waist or dropping a soft and quick kiss to Derek’s cheek or shoulder. Sometimes he just weaves their fingers together and holds on until the stranger gets the idea.

For all that Stiles has always been a fierce little shit, Derek never would have guessed how safe he would feel with Stiles. He would never have believed at the age of sixteen that he could feel safe with anyone like this. But here they are. And it’s good.


End file.
